Here is September 19th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is September 20th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is September 21st's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is September 23rd's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Here is September 24th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
Fairly high. I certainly think the large majority of people there will vote to join it. Consider also the following factors: many of the really pro-Ukraine people fled as Russia advanced, leaving mainly the pro-Russian people and the people who don't give a shit who they're ruled by; Russia is a richer country with more opportunities than Ukraine; and residents here likely fear what Ukraine would do to them if the territory was recaptured, even if they weren't especially pro-Russian.
Definitionally not because not all the residents of the area are being counted - the people who fled aren't getting a vote and presumably they'd want to go back to their homes once the war is done (at least, it it remained Ukrainian, not sure if they'd wanna go back if it turns Russian), and it's also basically impossible to do 100% genuine direct democracy in wartime anyway - Ukraine is actively trying to make the results go its way, and so you need to counter those efforts, and in the process of countering them, somebody's gonna call bullshit on you. And Russia obviously has military and civilian authorities there and I cannot imagine, if the results ended up being pro-Ukraine, that they would accept that those results were fair.
But I think it's still not a total sham. It's certainly less of a sham than the West is making it out to be. The point of this isn't that Russia is "spreading democracy" or whatever bullshit the West says they're doing, the realpolitik here is that Russia cannot be seen by the international community as annexing territory and so the territories must choose to join them. The West will decry these as shams even if they're the most democratic process the world has seen up until this point, so who gives a shit about them. Russia's trying to make everybody else, which is 80-90% of the world's population, not unhappy at them.